Ask ME Questions- I'm a first yr.

LAC_operon
Fri, 23 Dec 2005 23:30:43 +0000

I love art, but I haven’t had a chance yet to take any art classes yet: its difficult for several reasons: as a first yr my time is cramped and art classes are often at night when I am usually studying, beginning art classes can be difficult to get into for first sem. first yrs, and art classes can be sometimes 4 credits, which would put me on “overload” status - meaning i am taking too many credits (freshman are allowed 18 credits before going on overload, which means extra credits require a request for approval…) this is not to scare you away for the art dept, i have first yr friends who are in intro to painting and drawing classes and they love it and the art dept seems good. they have some unusual classes in the Asian arts: book making, paper making (with an optional trip to Japan), etc and select students (on of them a first yr down the hall) get to study with a prof and learn about tea ceremony, calligraphy, and other aspects of the traditional culture. To get to take classes like these, students need to ask and get friendly with the profs, which brings me to my next point. you say: “that can deal with independent study, would be worth looking into. And a strong, flexible writing program to catch the other half of that.” I am uneasy with the terms ‘that can deal’ and ‘flexible’. while students at a small private LAC have much for personal interaction with profs and can get into classes like the japan art./cultural one like i mentioned with talking with profs, in my perspective (which is limited by my first semester mind you), flexible doesn’t seem to describe the distribution requirements: you have to take a certain number credits in different departments: like science, math, history, etc and only certain classes count for certain distributions (for ex. creative writing counts in the fine arts area not for english/humanities). also, if your D just likes art, she must be prepared to take classes from across the board at a LAC. our academics are very strong, but I don’t know about flexible and teaching how to write alternative things like comic books.